The evolution of the concept of "National Policy" in Canadian historiography
Date
1972
Authors
Ōhara, Yūko
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Abstract
In English-Canadian historical writing, the term "national policy" has often meant specific governmental policies that is, the policies of protective tariffs, railway development and western settlement. It is a concept which has no parallel in either British or American scholarship which traditionally provided the models for the Canadian discipline. This study investigates the process by which the concept evolved and the general term gained such specialized meanings.
The first use of the term seems to be that recorded in the House of Commons Debates in 1869. Here it meant a new economic policy for Canada necessitated by the American failure to renew the Reciprocity Treaty. During the next decade of debate and use by politicians, the term achieved a generally recognized meaning in capitalized form as a policy of protective tariffs.
The earliest historians tended to define "National Policy" much as did the politicians. A significant exception, however, was J. C. Hopkins who, in defending the "National Policy" from its critics near the end of the century, argued that it should be judged as including not only the tariff but other policies such as the building of railways and the encouragement of settlement in the Northwest. Hopkins' broader definition of the term did not become popular until the 1930's when the scholars writing for the Rowell-Sirois Commission outlined a tripartite "national policy" as a central theme in Canadian economic development. Donald Creighton employed the capitalized term in describing these policies and associating their origin with his hero, Sir John A . Macdonald.
In examining the advantages and defects of the "National Policy" for Canada, historians have tended toward an ever broadening usage of the term. Economic historians, such as V. C. Fowke, have tended to see an economically determined "national policy" evolving well before Confederation and providing the most important factor in Canadian economic development. Even the severest critics of "National Policy" such as J. H. Dales, who questioned its ultimate benefit for Canadian development, accepted the existence and importance of a tripartite "National Policy".
Some historians have been inclined to identify "National Policy" with nationalism. Soon after World War I, 0. D. Skelton associated the "National Policy" of protection with the attainment of unity and autonomy. Nationalistic historians such as D. G. Creighton and J. M. S. Careless revised and enlarged Skelton's version by adopting the concept of a tripartite "National Policy" and commended it for promoting the political development of Canada. R. C. Brown presented perhaps the broadest use of the term in associating the 'spirit' of the "National Policy" with Canadian nationalism. Indeed, it is exceptional to find a historian such as Peter Waite treating the concept only in the sense used by the contemporaries of the period.
In determining the meaning of "National Policy", historians' points of view seem to have been more influential than historical facts. Canadian historians enlarged the meaning of the term, for instance, in defending political parties or in urging the need for positive governmental policies in a period of depression. But the main theme which they seem to have pursued in common was a belief in the necessity of nation-building; implying the validity of a nationalism which they sought to express through the question-begging term of "National Policy"